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Racism & Anti-Immigrant

Racial inequality remains deeply embedded within U.S. social and economic structures, even as its forms and justifications are in flux. Additionally, although the U.S. has long been considered “a nation of immigrants,” the question of who those immigrants are and where they come from, has provided fertile ground for exclusionary and bigoted policies for over 200 years. The projection that the U.S. will no longer be a majority white country sometime in the mid-21st century, along with the government’s massive post-911 campaign of racial profiling, has reinvigorated White supremacist anxieties present in the U.S. since its founding. 

A well-funded and organized constellation of organizations with direct ties to racist eugenics and White nationalism are now at the forefront of efforts to slow this demographic trend. Its current manifestations—workplace abuses, the separation of families, and the further expansion of mass incarceration, among other things—have wide-reaching and adverse effects.

Religion Dispatches
Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk who joined the ancestors earlier this year, was profoundly influential for Black Buddhists who’ve struggled under the weight of systemic racism and…
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Religion Dispatches
Sometimes it’s as necessary as a bowel movement to point out how some very smart pundits can conceal their very weak thinking by way of subtle appeal to a dangerous nostalgia. Ross Douthat comes to…
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Religion Dispatches
This Lenten season, when the First United Church of Oak Park, Illinois gathered for Sunday services, the music had all been composed by people of color. They had decided to give up whiteness for Lent…
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Religion Dispatches
Fifty-four years ago—on April 4, 1968—Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Exactly one year earlier—on April 4, 1967—Dr. King created a huge furor by coming out strongly against the…
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Political Research Associates
How “Countering Violent Extremism” Groups Elevate “Former” White Nationalists
Countering Violent Extremism programs purport to understand and dissuade “extremism”, but a closer look at organizations and players in these programs show problematic framing and marginalization of communities.
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Religion Dispatches
“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?” It was…
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Religion Dispatches
By the time you read this, Ketanji Brown Jackson will almost certainly have been confirmed to her seat on the US Supreme Court, barring any last-minute stalling tactics by Republicans or unanticipated…
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Religion Dispatches
A recent article by conservative watchdog Campus Reform targeted my collaborative research talk on racial justice work in and as Buddhist practice . The talk traced the multiple ways whiteness has…
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Religion Dispatches
This month, a $100 million advertising campaign and website have been launched nationwide to help a particular figure rebrand. In the current climate, just who, do you think, might warrant such a…
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Religion Dispatches
Earlier this year the California State University Board of Trustees unanimously ratified the California Faculty Association’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, which included for the first time a…
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